It's a big year for anniversaries related to the first and second world wars.

Not only does 2014 mark 100 years since the start of the first world war, but it also sees the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings and the allied invasion of occupied Europe during the world war two.

Launched on 6 June 1944, D-Day was the largest naval, air and land operation in military history, with events in the months that followed leading to the allied victory.

The anniversary is an excellent opportunity for teachers across all subjects from media to history to bring the emotion and daring of the day into the classroom with this handy collection of resources.

First up, the Royal British Legion has created a pack of D-Day themed assemblies aimed at promoting remembrance among young people. Five of the assemblies are for use with primary pupils during the week leading up to the anniversary – and there's a stand-alone assembly for secondary schools. The assemblies focus on the people who risked their lives as part of D-Day – from servicemen and women to doctors and nurses – and each assembly ends with a reflective thought and poem.

There's also a terrific fact file of 20 things you need to know about D-Day from The Royal British Legion. Ideal for use with secondary students, groups could: choose four or five facts to present to the rest of the class; create infographics using some of the statistics about the number of troops involved and where they came from; select one fact to do some independent research around in greater detail. Students also can examine the steps that led to D-Day with this timeline. There are plenty more resources here if you want to explore the topic in more detail.

To help teachers explore the events of D-Day and its impact on the course of the second world war, there's a fascinating PowerPoint presentation from the Imperial War Museum. Students can investigate the considerable planning that went into the event and some of the tactics used by the allies to convince the Germans that the landings would be happening elsewhere.

The photographs and artwork included in the presentation are excellent and could be used as a stimulus for a range of class discussions. Why did Canadian troops landing at Juno Beach carry bicycles? And how did the allies solve the problem of landing such huge numbers of men and materials? There are further suggestions on how to use the presentation here.

Another really useful resource is this interactive presentation from the Guardian – perfect for history and media teachers alike. Students can find out more about Operation Overlord – the codename for the allied invasion of north-west Europe – and they can read how events were covered by the Manchester Guardian at the time. The newspaper's main war correspondent was David Woodward, one of three British war correspondents landed in France from the air.

The archives of the Manchester Guardian also form the basis of this second world war teaching pack that includes a lesson about the events that led to and occurred during D-Day. The resource, suitable for use with secondary students, features illustrations by Evening Standard cartoonist David Low that were published at the time. Explore more D-Day themed articles from the Guardian here.

You will find a further range of excellent materials on the Imperial War Museum's D-Day website. These include photographs and a series of watercolours by Anthony Gross, an official war artist during the second world war.